Authentic Polish Pierogi with Potatoes and Cheese

Authentic Polish pierogi with potatoes and cheese – traditional Polish dish at its best. Try this recipe and never buy pierogi again . They are amazing.

Have you ever tried real, authentic Polish pierogi?

Now I’m not talking about the frozen dish that you can purchase in almost every supermarket. In fact, these store bought cousins are even improperly named. They’re called “Pierogies.”

For all Poles, this is the funniest thing ever. Reason being is that the word “Pierogi” is already pluralized (1 “pierog” is the singular). The adding of an “s” to make the English name plural is just way too funny. But obviously I get it, and I’m absolutely not offended.

Actually, it makes me proud that we have created a dish so popular that is eaten throughout the world. So, if you haven’t tried a true authentic version yet, then definitely give these a go. ‘Street-cred’ affirmation: I am 100% Polish, born and raised in Wroclaw, Poland, and I make pierogi every year. These are the real deal 🙂

As I mentioned I make this type of Authentic Polish Pierogi every year….for Christmas. However, these aren’t the variety out there; I also make pierogi with sauerkraut and mushrooms – which are far more typical for Christmas in Polish homes.

Yet, Pierogi with Potatoes and Cheese are also very popular and often cooked in Polish homes. So, long story short, I brought this culinary tradition with me to US and every year I devote either a day or 2 to making my favorite Polish dishes for Christmas.

In an effort to perpetuate these traditions, I’ve been indoctrinating my new family (my husband and my in-laws) by annually hosting a Christmas eve dinner. And while this effort to cultivate their palates to the fully spectrum of my Polish Christmas menu at first was met with baby steps, I can honestly say that they’re all in full stride now.

Staples of this Christmas menu include: 2 kinds of pierogi, red borsch (a clear beet soup), Bigos (hunter’s stew), fish “greek style” (funny that it’s dubbed ‘Greek’ because it’s a very Polish dish), and Salatka (a root vegetable/potato/egg salad to die for). While I could do more, I’ve decided to limit it and still enjoy the process of cooking and sharing with my family.

Now that we have a baby, Gabe, who is growing up way too fast (sorry for the cliche gang, but it’s true). He is half Polish and I really want him to experience some of Mommy’s, and therefore his own, traditions. So I try to supplement his diet with Polish dishes whenever I can.

As long as I’m talking about traditions I’d like to give you a little glimpse of how a Polish Christmas looked for me when I was growing up. Obviously I’m saying “for me” because I know that almost every home had their own little differences.

In fact, I know that as some of my Polish friends read this post that they’ll be saying that this or that looked different in their houses. For instance, there was a clear divide between soup served. I’m aware that people either had borsch (my house) or a mushroom soup. With that said, there were some hybrid houses that had both soups served.

And recently I found out that there was yet another type of soup gracing Christmas tables…sauerkraut and mushroom. These variations seemed to run with geographic region (like Red & Blue states). So, as this one example attests, different parts of Poland had different traditions; but I can tell you that there were some universals for all Poles.

Christmas Eve dinner always kicked off the holidays. Dinner was served after the first star showed up in the sky and consisted of 12 dishes. However, atypical of most Polish meals, meat was prohibited from Christmas Eve table. Rather, the ingredients which dominated tables were: fish, pierogi, mushrooms, sauerkraut, cabbage.

The common dishes served would be borsch with mushroom mini pierogi (kind of like a ravioli), mushroom soup, different varieties of pierogi (the most popular being with mushrooms and sauerkraut), bigos without meat (hunter’s stew – sauerkraut with mushrooms, plums, tomatoes) or just sauerkraut with mushrooms, fish – Hearings served in different sauces, and the most popular being Karp. My family wasn’t a hug fan of Karp because it was so boney and therefore my mom always went with Trout. Our go to was a whole trout stuffed with lemon and butter (OMG!).

I don’t know if you’re familiar with our Polish Karp tradition, but it seems to me that a number of people around the world have a vague familiarity with it, as I was asked about it a few times.

Anyhow if were to visit any community in Poland right before Christmas, you would find places everywhere selling “Live Karp.” As a kid my own appreciation of this was that everyone was taking Karps home and letting them swim in the tub (cool right? a pet!). I knew nothing more than that. To this day I still question where these glorious pets would vanish to.

But I digress, Pierogi are a different story. I always know where they start, and where they end. They start with potatoes, cheeses, onions, spices and with the flour for the dough. I roll it, cut it into little round cut outs, insert a little ball of potatoes/cheese mixture, seal it and there you go.

While this tradition is alive, I no longer abide by the no meat on Christmas Eve mandate. So, often I sprinkle my pierogi with a little bit of chopped bacon, and likewise I use sausage in my hunter’s stew. But I know that a lot of people are still very strict about this requirement.

Anyhow, the addition of meat is purely optional. For the featured version here of Authentic Polish pierogi, I did go with some chopped bacon.

Now, I won’t lie here. When you’re new to the Pierogi making business it can take a while to master them. Admittedly, they seem so easy, but when you get to the point where they have to be sealed, a lot of times you’ll find that they aren’t very cooperative. But practice makes perfect. It used to take me hours from start to finish.

Now I can be done in 2 hours with about 80 Pierogi – ready to serve. So, if you have the patience to learn how to make them, then go ahead and give it a try. Just don’t get discourage the first time out. Even if it takes time, I can guarantee that they will taste delicious and you’ll be so proud of yourself that you will want to tell the whole world about them and the work you’ve done.

In fact, I guess I’ve waited a lifetime to say, ‘hey world, here are Pierogi!!!!’ Without further adieu, I give you my super delicious Authentic Polish Pierogi with Potatoes and Cheese. Cheers!

Authentic Polish Pierogi with Potatoes and Cheese Recipe

Course: Dinner

Cuisine: Polish

Prep Time:2hours

Cook Time:30minutes

Total Time:2hours30minutes

Servings:6-8

Author:Innocent Delight

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Ingredients

For the filling:

5medium potatoes

8ozfarmers cheese

1tablespoonblue cheese(optional)

2tablespooncheddar cheese(optional)

1whole onion, chopped

1/2teaspoongarlic powder

1/2teaspoononion powder

1tablespoonof oil or ghee for onion

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

For the dough:

3cupswhole purpose flour

1/2cupwarm milk

1/2to 3/4 cup of warm water(depending on how much your flour soaks)

1tablespoonmelted butter

A little bit of kosher salt

For the toppings

1large onions, chopped

3slabs of bacon, chopped (optional)

1/2cupof sour cream

2tablespoonof oil or ghee for frying

Instructions

For the filling:

Place potatoes in a pot, cover with water and cook until fork tender

In the meantime heat up the oil or ghee in a frying pan, add onions and cook until golden brown

Once potatoes are cooked, using a hand blender or potato masher, mashed potatoes so they don't have lumps

Add farmers cheese and mix together

Add onions, other cheeses, spices, salt and pepper and mix well.

For the dough:

Pour the flour on a counter or other surface that will allow you to make the dough

Add a pinch of salt

Make a little whole in a middle and start adding milk and butter

Add a little water at the time and work the dough until you can form a ball about 10-15 minutes

Once done, cover it with the big bowl and let it rest for about 20-30 minutes

Roll the dough until thin (like pasta) and using either cookie cutter or large wine glass cut the circles

Place 1 teaspoon of fling in the middle of the circle

Wet one half of the circle and then seal it together

Boil large pot of water and season with salt

Once the water is boiling put about 8 pierogi at the time

Once they come to the surface let them cook for 1 minute and using spider or slotted spoon take them out on a plate

If you want to fry them like I did here, use 1 tablespoon of oil or ghee and fry pierogi on each side until golden brown

For the toppings:

Using separate pans add oil and onions and fry the onions until golden brown and bacon until crispy (you don't need fat for bacon as it is already fatty)

Add onions and bacon on top with pierogi and serve with sour cream

Recipe Notes

1. Some people use egg for the dough. I tried all kinds of dough variations and in my opinion mine is the most delicate. Egg tends to make the dough tougher. You can add egg to the dough and reduce amount of liquid.2. Addition of blue cheese and cheddar is something new to me. It's a simple trick from very famous Polish chef. I tried it and it really elevates this dish to another level. 3. If you are not serving pierogi immediately, take them out on a counter and let them cool down and dry a little bit. Make sure that they are not touching each other. Once cooled, place them on a baking sheet, again with distance from each other, place in a freezer and let them freeze. Once done, you can pack them in the plastic bag.

I make homemade pierogi every year with a small gaggle of Polish friends who remember the dish fondly from their childhoods. My recipe is passed down from my grandmother and Aunt, both Polish immigrants and it varies a little from this. Of course, each of the women who joins in this undertaking every December all have recipes that vary from mine and yours, as well. In fact, I have not met any two that make it the same way, but all have been delicious and the fundamentals of potato, cheese, and sauerkraut are present in everyone’s dishes. Thank you for adding another variation to mix and I look forward to introducing this version to our troupe next year!

Hi Laurie, thanks for sharing your pierogi story and I agree almost every woman makes a little variation. There are differences in dough and in filling. I tried different types of dough and sticked to this one for the last couple of years but it is personal preference. As for the filling it was the first time ever that I added different cheeses on top of the farmer’s cheese and my family said that these pirogi were the best I have ever made. So maybe it made a difference or maybe they already forgot that one year ago they were equally delicious :). I’m happy to hear that you want to try it with your troupe next year! 🙂

I will try these for my husband. He loves pierogi. But he also loves Bigos (Hunters Stew) we’ve never found a recipe that tastes like he had years ago. Can you share a recipe for it with me? Thank you so much.

Thanks Ann! I will definitely put Hunter’s stew on my list to post. For now you can check my recipe for Sauerkraut and Mushrooms and to make bigoes I normally add to this recipe tomato paste, prunes, red wine, onions, bigos seasoning (found in Polish deli), and sautéed sausage and I cook it for a couple of hours. Email me at edyta(at)innocentdelight.(com) if you need exact recipe and I will send it to you.

I’m so glad you posted your recipe. I celebrate Christmas Eve with my ukrainian family, so we have borscht and boiled petahe. I can’t wait to try your pierogi recipe (even though I’ll still secretly call them petahe haha)

I am Ukrainian and grew up eating pierogi, aka petahe . I had no idea how that word was spelled, My grandmother cooked them for us and luckily we never limited them to just Christmas time but enjoyed them all year . She also cooked cabbage rolls and city chicken, not really chicken at all. Still some of my favorite foods.

I am also Ukrainian (1/2) and have fond memories of learning how to make petahe when young enough to have to stand on a chair at the table when “helping” mix the dough. We made petahe and cabbage rolls frequently, with my grandmother also using grape leaves for rolling, We had occasional borcsht, some kind of liver pate’ and (pig’s) head cheese as well. I am curious if people who make cabbage rolls with tomato sauce are more Germanic in heritage as ours weren’t prepared that way.

OMG… I love you for showing us how to make these yummy little morsels. They are one of my favorite things and I love to eat them with my homemade warmed up bacon jam.

Wish you were close by so you could give me a private lesson. I would love to hear all about your home country while you whipped these up. Reading your post was almost the same!! Your husband and in-laws are quite lucky!!

I loved reading about your yummy pierogi. I grew up in a second generation polish immigrant family and Christmas Eve was a meatless meal filled with fish, mushrooms , kapusta and all the wonderful foods that my Mother learned from her Grandmother and Mother and taught my sisters. And I. Keep sharing those wonderful recipes on your blog.

Thanks Janice. I will do my best to share more traditional Polish recipes. Thanks so much for visiting my blog. It means a lot that Polish descent is my reader and that we have common traditions. All the best in 2015! 🙂

Thank you for sharing !! Our family shared almost the same traditions as you on Christmas Eve. My mother spent many days leading up to Christmas making her delicious pierogi, borsch,kapusta. We were spoiled with blueberryy ,potato & cheese & sauerkraut filled pierogi. Golomki were another favorite for Sunday dinners! I have mastered the golomki and you have inspired me to do the same with the pierogi. My Mother would be delighted!

Ty for taking all your time to share this wonderful recipe with us out here in blog land. I have no Polish blood in me, but grew up with a good friend who was, and every Saturday, her grama who lived with them, made pierogi. As kids, being given one of these treats, we felt so lucky. Now , we live in St Louis, and I haven’t found a place that makes a pierogi like i remember from my childhood. Our son has married and lives in Columbia MO, now and we have found a very small restaurant there that serves pierogi, that are to die for. That is just about all they serve there, but several different flavors. We feel so lucky to have the authentic family run Polish restaurant with the real deal Polish food. So many wonderful blend of different countries, with so many great family memories. Love all these stories on your blog. Please keep them coming.

Thank you for your post! I am polish and make pierogi for Christmas Vigilia dinner. We also have Borsch at that dinner as well! I loved reading your post- we are lucky to share such wonderful recipes with our children!

Thank you for this post! I’ve tried several different doughs, one using sour cream. I plan to try your recipe when I make these next week. Besides Christmas, I host a “Polish St. Patrick’s Day” party in March every year for my family where we all eat Polish food, and enjoy spending time together.

Hey Rachel, thanks for checking my recipe. Farmer’s cheese is a white cheese, that is soft, sort of like ricotta but a little bit more firm and sour. You can buy Farmer’s cheese in any grocery store. I’m sure that if you ask for help the staff will be able to show you where to find it.

my mother was from Poland. Her pierogi were always made with mince inside. I can’t remember what kind, maybe a mix of beef and pork or lamb. It was mixed with grated onion, garlic, pepper, salt and dill. She used dill in her cooking a lot! Lol. They were served with cooked bacon bits like yours, and boiled only. She never fried them. She’s passed now ?. I miss her pierogi so very much ?

Hi Kristina, this is such a touching message. I can imagine how much you must miss your mother. Pierogi that you described are actually very popular in Poland. There are 3 main kinds: with potatoes and cheese, sauerkraut and mushrooms, and minced meat. They can be served boiled or fried. I’m hoping to post more Polish dishes on a blog. I will definitely make pierogi with meat one day. Thanks so much for stopping by and your kind comment.

Yoou actually make it appear really easy along with your presentation however I find this matrter to be really something that I believe I might never understand. It seems tooo complex and extremely huge for me.I am having a look ahead to your subsequent post, I will attempt to get the hang of it!

Loved your recipe. My dad learned how to make perogi from his Polish neighbors when he was young. His mom passed when he was little so he helped with kitchen duties (makes the best bread and cinnamon rolls ever) . He taught my mom and I have sweet memories of spending a day with her making perogi. Glad to see you pan frying them. Never thought to add bacon, so now mine will have a little twist too.

My husbands family is Polish and this is my first attempt at making Pierogi from scratch. Babcza doesn’t have the dough recipe written down anywhere so thank you for posting your recipe. I hope that mine turn out as beautiful as yours look.

I’m so excited about trying this recipe. We adore the frozen, store-bought pierogi, so I am salivating at the thought of having authentic, home-cooked ones. 😀 I do have a question: could these be prepared ahead of time and either refrigerated or frozen for busy weeks when cooking time is limited? Thanks!

Hi Laura, yes you can prepare them ahead of time. You need to be careful though because the dough can stick together. If you want to make them and keep them in a fridge for a couple of days, the best thing is to melt some butter and pour it over warm pierogi, gently stir it so all of them are covered with butter. It will keep them from sticking together. If you want to freeze them, the best way is to cook them first and and when you took them out of the water, place them on a baking sheet apart from each other and let dry. Once the top is dry, using another baking sheet, flip the pierogi and put them on a new, dry baking sheet to dry them on the other side. After they are dry, place the whole baking sheet into the freezer. Let them freeze totally for couple of hours and once they are frozen, you can move them to a plastic bag and store for a few months. Good luck and let me know if you have any more questions. 🙂

By all means, use the mixer and let me know how it came out. I don’t have one and I cannot really say for sure, but I know that people are making dough in the mixers and it comes out great. Less work for you 🙂 Worth a try Phillis!

Do you have a better measurement for the farmers cheese? My package is 7.4 oz …not Sure how I’m Supposed to figure out 0.8 oz. and only 2 tablespoons of cheddar…it doesn’t seem like very much cheese for the recipe

Hi Bethany. Cook pierogi until they just come to the surface. Take them out and place either on baking sheets or directly on your clean countertop separately. Make sure that they don’t touch each other. They will dry on top, then flip them on the dry surface and dry them out on the other side. The whole process is to make sure that they do not stick together. Then place them separately on the baking sheet and put it in a freezer. After couple of hours you can take the sheet out and put pierogi in either plastic bag or container and put them back to the freezer. When you need to use them, simply put frozen pierogi to the hot, boiling water. Let them come to the surface and cook for a minute or two. Take them out and either serve like this with some onions and bacon (just make sure that they are covered with some fat so they will not be sticking) or now you can fry them. It’s best to dry them a little bit before you fry them so they will not be making splashes on a pan. Let me know if you have any more questions.

I am so excited to find your blog and make this recipe! My first late husband was of polish ancestry- his grandmother in Pennsylvania made the first Pierogi I ever tasted- I have never had one since that came close…. this isn’t very common recipe in the southern state I live in ☺

I used to binge eat the frozen perogi back in college as a snack. Yes, I was overweight. But they were always super bland. So I just assumed that I would have to tolerate the blandness. I am a quarter Polish and have never had authentic Perogi. I’m so going to make these and freeze them for when I need a bit of nostalgia but with flavor of epic proportions. I would do bacon too. Why do many Polish families refrain from eating meat on Christmas eve? As a Catholic growing up, we only did that on Fridays and Ash Wednesday all during Lent.

Hi Kendall, I don’t think that it was Polish thing to not eat meat on Fridays. I know that Italians are doing that too. I also know that recently Pop said that you don’t have to refrain from eating meat on Christmas Eve but because it has always being a tradition, most Poles still don’t eat meat on this day.

Hi Jennifer. To be quite honest I have never let the dough sit that long. I know that some people freeze the dough but I am not sure how it works after that. It doesn’t take much time so I prefer to prepare fresh one. Few hours would be fine but I’m not sure about overnight.

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Hi, my name is Edyta Czaplicka Hannas and I live in New York, with my wonderful husband Eric and now two little cutie pies, Gabriel and Aiden. I'm originally from Poland and I love cooking and sharing my love for Mediterranean and European foods. Read More…

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Hi, my name is Edyta Czaplicka Hannas and I live in New York, with my wonderful husband Eric and now two little cutie pies, Gabriel and Aiden. I'm originally from Poland and I love cooking and sharing my love for Mediterranean and European foods. Read More…